At a White House press conference Thursday, Vice President JD Vance said the H-1B visa program is “rife with fraud,” and singled out Microsoft Corporation, one of the U.S. tech giants that hires non-U.S. citizens for jobs in the U.S. via the H-1B approval process.
Vance said the federal government wants technology companies to thrive in the U.S., and to invest in the U.S., particularly in the American technology sector, and said, “We are the biggest booster of your industry.”
He added, “But we want you to employ American workers. And so our message to Microsoft is, you’re a great American company but you’ve got to hire great American workers. You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants.”
VP JD Vance puts Microsoft on notice, telling the tech giant it cannot lay off American workers only to replace them with foreign labor.
“We are the biggest boosters of your industry,” Vance says, making clear that the administration wants American technology companies to thrive, but expects them to hire Americans in the process.
“You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers.”
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 8, 2026
U.S. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling also spoke at the press conference and announced: “I am hereby suspending from the Permanent Labor Certification Program some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world — Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini — and also, due to multiple active federal investigations, @USDOL is suspending Microsoft and Adobe from the program.”
.@Sonderling47: “I am hereby suspending from the Permanent Labor Certification Program some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world — Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini — and also, due to multiple active federal investigations, @USDOL is suspending Microsoft and Adobe from the program.”
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 8, 2026
Later in the day, President Trump awarded Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the National Medal of Technology and Innovation during Trump’s “Science: A New Golden Age” summit in Washington, D.C.
[NOTE: The Washington Post pointed out “Of the six tech leaders who received an award for scientific and technological achievement from the president, five came from abroad,” including South African-born Elon Musk, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Lisa Su, CEO of the semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices.]
At the awards ceremony, Trump said of Microsoft’s CEO: “For more than three decades, Satya Nadella has been a key figure in the transformation of Microsoft, revolutionizing the company and empowering businesses, students and consumers from all over the world with some of the most capable software ever built.”
President Trump celebrated tech billionaires for their contributions to America on Thursday only hours after a company run by one of them, Microsoft, was accused by his vice president of abusing the visa system to bring in more foreign workers. https://t.co/V2sJNaWTQU
— PBS News (@NewsHour) October 8, 2026
[NOTE: Forbes reported in November, “According to a new analysis of government data, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Google had the most approved new H-1B petitions in FY 2025, and Apple was number 6.” Amazon led all U.S. employers with 4,644 initial H-1B approvals, nearly triple the next-highest sponsor, Meta Platforms, which secured 1,555 approvals (doubling its previous count). Microsoft came in third, receiving 1,394 approvals. Google was fourth.]